There is a Garden in Her Face
by DW-chan
Summary: A curious Kurapica discovers something from the past of a co-employee...(one-shot)


There is a Garden in Her Face...  
  
by: DW-chan  
  
  
  
There is a garden in her face  
  
Where roses and white lilies grow;  
  
A heavenly paradise is that place  
  
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow...  
  
Thomas Campion  
  
  
  
Things left alone do not usually bother my consciousness. Those lonely parcels brandished in dust: they lay conspicuously between oblivion and contempt. But now, I did not expect myself to find a different world open before me through the process of careless curiosity.  
  
The leather bindings of her small suitcase suddenly became vivid strings of molten stars to my now strangely inspective eye. It sat like a hunched beggar beside my own bag, which grew imploring eyes, kind eyes. So I was lured to it. The room where the bags and I were in was empty, and the windows were only partly open; the air was saturated with the musty smell of something old and grand but seriously battered by the ages. The hotel's common rooms were not really ideal places to reside for ones with tastes of the fresh and modern; right now, I minded not. It was not the room, something told me. It was the bag. Her bag.  
  
I am not a thief. On the contrary, I felt like an eager child waiting to open a long-anticipated present. I approached that hunched thing as though claiming it were mine.  
  
And then, I was there, right before it.  
  
My hands were lead and satin and fire. With effort not physical in nature, I took its handle, and grasped it. Lead, Satin, Fire. There was no guilt, only slow silence. But the sound of a lock clicking open tore through it (like a roar of thunder) and I stepped back, impulsively; the suitcase lay open before me.  
  
Like an eager child, I reached forth and delved deep into its dark creases, feeling for its contents, for candy, for colorful trinkets, for perfume bottles, for lost, good things. She loved music, I thought. I fished out pieces of songs, written in faded ink, unfinished. I fished out a silver- colored pen and a tiny bottle of dark ink, half-empty, a sight like raven feathers mingling with sheets of glass. The others that followed were trivial but not unpleasant. Those were human necessities even I had in my own little tote. I fished them all out, till there it was.  
  
There were eyes staring before me through pale glass. Perhaps these were the eyes that called to me through the thick layer of leather and dust. The frame was simple, unadorned. It was a thin tarnished border with the color of black ivory. The eyes belonged to a face of the past, and they stared at me, through me. I absently covered the sound of my heart with a cupped palm. The chains that wound themselves around my fingers rang to my deaf ears. Ears. Did this face had ears too? Living ears? My heartbeat sang. The curious child in me unfashionably disappeared, until a small speck of guilt tainted me. No, this face couldn't hear me. This mere photograph could not assault me. This photograph is a face of the past; her face.  
  
At first glimpse, the dark hair: whisps like wings, cradled by wind, blowing mildly to the left. Time held the strands there. Then, skin with the color of creamy moon. Chaste, aglow. My mind rolled with the tides of a distant sea. _This isn't her, this could not be her._ The tender nose, the cheeks of winter apples, the innocent lips curving upward. _This isn't her, this could not be her_. Delicate fingers folded themselves around the strands of her hair. Unrelenting wind, stubborn wind, teasing her so. Lastly, the eyes. A dash of green sprinkled with cinnamon brownâ€"a clear hazel. They spoke of days untroubled, uncorrupted by ambition, by the world. If my demeanor allowed me now, I could have wept. This *isn't* her, this could *not* be her. But then it *was* her. Tips of three of my fingers gently touched the glass, leaving three clean, round marks where the dust had been lifted. There was sad truth in this fragile thing I held. For a moment, I was imprisoned in somebody else's cage. For a moment, I carried a burden not for my arms to bear.  
  
A knock. A tiny call.  
  
Her voice!  
  
I slipped everything back to the suitcase, like a foraging scoundrel. There was a small clatter and I realized I flung the pen by accident to a far side of the room, a victim of my haste. Lead, satin, fire; I moved too languidly while I raced through time and dove for the pen a second too late. The door opened without my reply and she walked through.  
  
Her small countenance cast no ominous shadow upon me, yet I trembled, but only to myself. There was an expression of confusion in her large eyes, a touch of disapproval on her deformed face. I was on my knees, silver pen in hand. I try not to feel embarrassment bite; on the other hand, it blanketed me. Her suitcase was askew, and a sheet dotted by song flew from the bag's open mouth. I was caught red-handed! A hunter like me, a warrior with skills hard-earned... I dwindled away like ash scattered by an angry gale. I felt lost, terribly ashamed.  
  
"Kurapica? What--"  
  
No, she did not sound angry. Only confused. Just confused. I stood up and slowly, under her gaze, I returned the silver pen, and tucked the paper like a pallid tongue dangling from a toothless mouth back into the suitcase. I breathed deep. The hand that covered the sound of my heart lay there in utter vanity.  
  
"I-I was just--"  
  
She then smiled. Why? Shame gnawed through my very marrow. _Little boy, you are a disgrace_, the man who hurriedly formed himself within me chided. She smiled and shook her head. "No need to explain. I would not want you to--"  
  
_Lie?_ I thought.  
  
"--feel sorry for it," she finished.  
  
Why does she smile so? Does she not realize the weight of her loss? Perhaps she does, but why... that smile? Maybe she can, after all, claim her past, her self before the Dark One's music twisted her physicality. Even then, she was still a being of infinite goodness. That was what the present can assure me of.  
  
I stood there, dumbfounded, defeated, like a dog who received twenty lashes.  
  
I watched as she approached her suitcase and straightened it up with care. I remembered my own hands lifting the same bag to the baggage net over the seats of the train cart where I initially met her.  
  
"You... you aren't... mad...?" I stuttered, obstinately nursing my composure.  
  
She faced me, seemingly startled by the question. "Why, no," she replied. Her smile ceased to fade, widening still, in all good humor. "I'm only bothered with the fact of a young boy finding out how really a boring person I am, through the things I bring!"  
  
She should not treat herself unfairly and spoil me with kindness! I was not to be outdone. "But..." I faltered.  
  
"But what?" She had patience. She waited long before I spoke.  
  
"There was one thing..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
I lifted my eyes to hold hers. The chains on my fingers tinkled emptily. There was this peculiar garden planted before me, and a small, friendly vine from it landed on my heart.  
  
"...that was beautiful."  
  
She turned away mildly, mildly to the left. She can hear me, though my palm still rested on my chest, less dubiously. There were soft pearls in her eyes.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
  
  
-Owari-  
  
  
  
Authors notes: Haha. Hahaha. Pardon me. I just needed some writing practice. Do not so be cruelly influenced by my out-of-this-galactic-realm ideas. Haha. Hahahaha. (Though I presume you now know who 'she' is....? Aw come on now ya gotta be kiddin' me!!!)  
  
I want a spider tattoo. Does anyone know how much red contacts are sold? ^_______^  
  
Ja ne everyone!!! 


End file.
